Ash Wednesday...

Today is Ash Wednesday and it is the beginning of the Lenten Season. We start the season by remembering that we are dust and that to dust we shall return. Today is also a day of fasting and abstinence.

Fasting nowadays doesn’t mean you don’t take anything at all but that you only have one complete meal for the day. Fasting from food for a day is lots easier than fasting from doing something that you really really like to do! But there are only 2 days the church requires for fasting… so I’m giving up something I like to do today…gosh, I still have some time to do it and am tempted but…. just for today…

Anyway, I am fasting from something I really like to do so that I got to divert my mind from such desire... so i'll just blog on…

Last Friday after our President declared the state of emergency, I got a call from a former officemate who is now in Netherlands. He was asking how our country is… I said still surviving… don’t listen to the news they make it look really bad… he was relieved so that our talk did not linger on our political situation.

It has been a while since I talked with him so I asked how he was… he was probably gone from our country for 10 years and has not seen his family since. I asked how he can stand it? He said he doesn't want to go home since he was still saving… Saving for what I asked (told him he already has millions)? He says for his children… But told him he only has 2 and the eldest is already working while the younger one is already graduating this March so how come he is still not coming home… Does he have someone there already? He says he got no one there and that he plans to migrate to Canada, that he is waiting for his children to take him there… I asked why doesn’t he apply himself and take them there… he said they have a better chance (ahhh how could they have better chance they have just started point wise he’ll be getting more points to be eligible for immigration)… he insisted they had better chance so I let be… no point arguing…

We talked some more and our talks went to churches… he said churches in Europe are now being converted to museums and that no one his age goes to church anymore… I asked including him? He says he hasn’t been to a church in a long long time, that when you visit people’s home there, you won’t see bibles but travel brochures lying on their tables… that they are concerned on just working and travelling… and I said including him? He says his days are concentrated on working then the occasional pleasure of bowling and going to the gym… I said that’s it? He is content with that life? He says he is used to it… but his savings is piling up. I told him, I would not be able to last in that environment… He says religion is just for third world countries! I thought -- Thanks God I am in a third world country... then told him maybe we should import more Filipinos to that country so that churches will be filled up again… but then again, if Filipinos that goes there become like him and lose the need for Church, then it is useless…

I dunno but I just felt sad after talking to him... to be far from your loved ones and to be far from your God…that’s really sad!